The Lonely
by Yearning
Summary: It's T minus twenty and counting. All the time in the world to wonder how it all turned out so different than he'd wanted, and if he really minds. Wolf considers where he's been, where he's at and where he's going. R&R appreciated.


Notes: So. I'd not ever expected to end up posting on here. My writing has always been something 'just for me'. My own private exorcism of the things preying on my mind. was just somewhere I could go to see what other people's ideas were like regarding things I enjoyed.

Eventually, of course, I gravitated onto the Lylat Wars, perusing a couple of stories (which I am now learning to bookmark and favourite), a couple of pictures... I'm sure people know how it is with some writing: some esoteric combination of _this_ and _that_ just strikes the right chord in you and BAM! A narrative unfolds into unexpected life.

Having recently come down with a nasty chest infection, I was feeling none-too-happy with life, and I'd been listening to stuff by The Raconteurs when suddenly the lead track, "Consoler of the Lonely" comes on. BAM! It all springs into life. A more weary Wolf O'Donnell, who'd been trying to fly free all his life, reflecting on his path to date, his position now, and realising that his motivation has mellowed and changed. Here, it's only just beginning to dawn on him, but he's a smart cookie under all the bravado.

I certainly can't comment on whether this is hugely in character, except that to say that it feels like this is as much of a conceivable direction for him to go in as any. As for quality, I can only hope the people who read this will be kind enough favour me with some constructive criticism to let me know what's good and bad: It'd certainly help me with tweaking the follow-on to this.

All standard ownership disclaimers apply.

* * *

"ETA to active combat zone is now T minus 20, and counting."

The synthetic voice echoed along the dirty, empty corridors, unheeded by those who had known long before that a fight was coming. Each of them, in their own way, knew that somehow this conflict would be different, definitive in some way. There was a ripple of anticipation in the air, anticipation and the sense of dread that came before each battle, that sense that this one might be the last one. The last thing they'd ever do. If they'd wanted words of comfort, it would mean tracking down their captain.

They knew where look, if they were brave enough to disturb him. They also knew better than to try, busying themselves with what little pre-flight ritual they'd picked up in the last few months. They each failed to cope in their own unique way.

Alphonse retreated to a dark corner, sometimes his room, sometimes the command deck, sometimes just wherever he was when the early warning siren sounded, knees hugged to his chest, mind whirring too fast to be ignored. He was, for all his battlefield callousness, the most sensitive out the three of them, the change of mood aboard ship an assault on his senses he was ill equipped to deal with.

Generally, there were tears. O'Donnell knew as much about the cause of it as he needed to, and tried to be kind. Mostly by leaving him alone, the best kindness he could muster. He was, he knew, the least sensitive one, but he wasn't as given to cruelty as the world liked to make out.

Leon was more likely to be found sprawled beneath a sun lamp in his quarters, fiddling with the long-range transmitter while he tried to get his colour back. It seemed like, when under contract, they could go weeks without seeing natural sunlight, making them all pale as ghosts, and Leon _hated_ it.

Everyone knew what _he'd_ be thinking about, though. Or rather who. He'd made no attempt to hide it. The faint whistling and crackle of static coming from beneath his door echoed eerily down the hall, as he scanned for any sign of his prey, obsessively listening for the faintest tell. He was another one it was unwise to disturb during the calm before the storm.

Not if you liked your guts on the inside, at least.

O'Donnell glanced at the display on the far wall of the hanger, noting the time with only mild interest.

He'd retreated to his usual spot: port hanger wall, sat on an empty fuel barrel with his bare back pressed against the metal, gazing at his precious baby, his new wings.

_-I'm gonna fly again-_

He'd not expected to. Especially not to be clashing against 'Team Hero' right off the bat, though really, honestly, it shouldn't have surprised him at all. Seemed like he'd no sooner got back into the air than his rival swooped in to smack him back down to earth.

Still, couldn't rain on his parade right now because, come what may, he had his wings again and he was gonna fly. He could fly free.

_-You ain't free. -_

He stamped on that thought hard, but it wouldn't be silenced, would not be denied. He'd always been rotten bad at lying to himself, no matter how he wanted to. Even right back at the start.

_"I can see you've got the talent, boy. You've got flight in your soul." he'd said, and Wolf had believed him, because he'd always believed it. "How about you come fly for me?" _

Oh yes... right back at the beginning, he'd known exactly what he was getting himself into, the nature of the deal before him, despite how young and naive he might have seemed. Sitting in some crappy bar, getting drunk to ease the pain of the Academy's rejection, wallowing in self-pity... What an easy target he must have made, the angry academy reject with the busted eye, who would have sold heart and soul to fly, like he knew he could.

Then there was him. The old man making his first appearance, with his weasel words and promises calculated to hit home perfectly. Sneaking in to sit beside him and whisper his condolences, his opinions.

His offer.

He'd never signed anything, never voiced agreement, but then he'd never had to. The emperor had already known that he'd bought the dreams, and therefore the man who dreamt them. It may as well have been a contract signed in blood, for all the difference it made. He'd signed away his past, present and future, all for his heart's desire.

_-I don't need nothin' but my wings.-_

Hadn't he always believed that? Why was it getting harder and harder to believe? He sighed and tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling and pressing his hands against the cold metal, letting the heat drain away from him.

He'd fought so hard for this, trained long and hard and unceasingly. He'd lost count of the hours logged in the flight simulator, or the many call-signs of the test-craft he'd volunteered to give shake-down flights to. He'd do it all again and more. So long as he could be the best, better than the academy snots that'd tried to take his dream away from him. It had almost paid off, too. For a while he'd been the best in his benefactor's eyes, pride of the fleet.

Then, suddenly... McCloud. Everything turned upside down.

He closed his eyes and it was like he was back there, all those years ago. Captain of 71st Squadron, Venom Armada, deployed to neutralise 'unexpected resistance' passing through the crux of the X Nebula cloud.

_The reports had already come in of the front line at Corneria being routed. He'd expected, like the rest of them, for some kind of hidden flotilla to come storming through the gas cloud. Something massive._

_NOT four light fighter craft and nothing else. cruising in diamond formation like some kind of errant military parade demo. Their would-be emperor had declared that only a miracle could prevail against the forces he'd arrayed against Corneria, and here it was._

_O'Donnell had been scanning the frequencies for any news from the front, anything to ease the boredom, tuning into their comms chatter purely by accident._

_"Bzzzt... for the rest of us. Ease off the trigger." That had been Lombardi, sound as gruff, moody and arrogant as all heck. He looked it, too, perma-scowling into his video feed. _

_"It's not like I was trying to! The heavy cruiser was just there, I couldn't ask them to wait for you..."_

_That had been him, the very essence of him, right from day one. Cocky and confident, self assured, grinning from the monitor like he'd been on a wild roller-coaster ride. O'Donnell knew, the second he saw him, that he'd found someone who was, in a way, just like him. Another flyboy who was only happy when he had wings to soar on. Someone who understood._

_The face on the monitor turned serious instantly. "Sharpen up, guys, I'm showing an advance force on radar, heat up the cannons and prepare to engage." The comms channel flickered off._

_It had taken him a few moments to realise what they were talking about. "Oh... that's us." It had kind of dawned on him, like he'd forgotten himself. He wasn't just coasting along here, he was a target. A bird on a leash of duty. _

_Minutes later, hostilities began, four light fighters against a full compliment of fifty-four heavily armed attack craft, trained and prepared for war._

_Not long after, it was all so much scrap metal. O'Donnell watched through the port of his escape pod as those four light fighter craft sped off to their next target, swearing he'd get back in the air and beat McCloud somehow, prove he was the best. _

As a plan, it wasn't working out.

He'd been captured and, as a faceless no-name pilot, he'd been granted a measure of leniency by the judge and dumped back on Zoness. Back to the slums he'd started in. _Ain't that just so fitting?_ At least they'd thrown him somewhere that no-one would care where he came from. Few people in the slums cared about much save for themselves.

He'd not been much surprised when his former employer had gotten back in touch later down the line with an offer he couldn't refuse. Too much effort had been invested in him to just let him rot away, right? It was a generous offer by any measure: specialised craft, a carrier to command, carte blanche to pick a team of his choosing, the freedom to spend his free time cruising the system as he liked. Live training, as the Emperor had called it. 'Build your strength and come when I whistle', more like.

But what an offer! Ticked every box in that desperate flyboy psyche of his, a tasty treat to lead him astray with. A way to dig himself deeper into trouble and he'd known it, too, but it was a way to get back in the air and test himself against his rival. He wasn't stupid, just so very, very needy.

_Too damn needy._

He slumped and curled his tail around his waist, letting the memory go. How many conflicts since then? Too many? Not enough for him to get the message, surely. It all blurred together eventually, just one massive aerial scrap between him and his rival, like that was all he'd been doing for the past god-knows-how-many years. Dancing along the edge of oblivion, with his favourite partner. He knew he'd been shot down more than one man should have to endure.

He always came back, though, always hungry for more, ready to risk death yet again for more time on his wings. Soaring... with him.

Such a strange, yet perfect comfort: that the sky should be all the better for knowing his adversary was like him, bound to the wind, to his wings. It made it a little less lonely, even as annihilation beckoned.

Eventually, he'd stopped wanting to shoot, only desiring to watch, as McCloud danced on the wind.

Off in the distance, a second warning siren echoed down the silent passageways. T minus five, and counting. Counting down to... something. Fate. Destiny. Something stupid like that. It didn't really matter in the end, did it? So long as he could fly again, glide peacefully for a few perfect minutes.

Pushing himself off his perch, he snatched up his flight jacket and strolled casually to his fighter, pressing his chilled fingertips to the side of the nose-cone, savouring the feeling of it, his new wings.

_I wonder if McCloud does this?_ It was hard to imagine the big war hero taking the time to savour his craft, to enjoy the moment while it lasted. No-one had yet managed to shoot down the cocky ace, and so what if they did? McCloud would survive, he always did, lucky bastard. He'd not be wingless for long, either. The military would probably fall over themselves to keep their saviours in the air.

It couldn't be like this for him. Looking at your ship and thinking of every dirty job he'd pulled, every underhand deal he'd made to scrape the money together for one more try, tasting the desperation at the back of his throat with every near miss. All for this, to spend moments admiring the fruit of your labours, and then take it out into combat and risk losing it all in a blaze of fire.

"I hope you feel honoured out there, McWin. I hope you feel special..." he murmured to himself, leaning forward and resting his forehead against the side of his fighter. "I keep on givin' up this thing I love, just so's you an' me can dance one more time."

The klaxxon sounded, and he was out of time. Clambering onto the wing, he stepped over to the canopy and keyed in his access code, seeing the others enter the hanger out the corner of his eye. Even at an oblique angle, there was no missing the wild, wired grin on Leon's face. That meant Lombardi was coming to the party, there was no mistaking it.

_Like this isn't dangerous enough already. _Watching the two maniacs fly at one another was frightening, aerial savagery, almost as bad as tuning in on them while they were fighting. He shivered at the thought: that was comm chatter he'd never listen in on again.

Clicking his harness into place, he flicked at switches around the cockpit almost without thinking, so familiar with this design of ship that he barely needed to pay attention to it. Above, the canopy lowered and fixed in place with a solid clunk, sealing him in as the displays came to life around him, a flood of light and information. He tapped in a few more control codes.

"Comm check, people. We live?"

Leon appeared onscreen, gabbling something incomprehensible before he vanished off again, sanity obviously too stretched to withstand much more scrutiny. Alphonse followed suit, still morose and withdrawn, but he didn't pay it much mind. Once they were out there in the thick of it, it'd be like someone had flicked a switch. Once the threat of death was in the air, he'd be alive, his true self once more. O'Donnell had gotten used to it, more or less.

"Keep your filthy paws away from Lombardi, both of you." Leon hissed into the comms.

"Same goes for McCloud. Hands off my... my..." O'Donnell trailed off. _Prey? Nah._ He wasn't prey. He'd always been rotten bad at lying to himself, after all, so there wasn't much point trying now.

_-I'm gonna fly again...-_

Was it worth it, though? He'd thought the wings were all that mattered, but he'd already figured out that wasn't it, not any more. He gazed numbly out the view port, watching the other craft auto-piloting their way to the launchway, then his own ship followed suit.

He'd never been truly free to fly, not once in all these years, but he'd found happiness elsewhere.

"No regrets." he breathed, trying to convince himself. Even though things had turned out different than he'd have liked, he couldn't bring himself to want to change any of it. After all, somewhere out there his rival was waiting, his partner for today's dance, and he had to give him his best.

His boost ignited and he was thrown out into space, not looking back even once.


End file.
